In current lighting systems, including multiple light sources, selection and control of the light sources usually occurs by fixed devices, such as wall panels having switches. The switches are used to control the light sources, such as to turn them on/off or dim them. In the event a user desires to change any lights, the user must return to the wall panel. Of course, the user needs to know which switch controls which light source. However, often the user does not have this information as switches or light sources are not marked. Such a situation is particularly problematic in the case of multiple light sources and multiple switches, where the switch that controls the desired light source is found by trial and error.
Recent developments have created remote control devices emitting a directional selection beam useful for selecting and adjusting light sources. The use of remote control devices, however, provides the risk of accidentally selecting a device (e.g. a light source) other than the desired device. Therefore, a trade-off must be made between ease of selecting a device (favoring a wide selection beam from the remote control) and avoiding the risk of selecting multiple devices (favoring a narrow selection beam from the remote control).
US2003/0107888 discloses a remote-control modular lighting system utilizing a directional wireless remote control for the selective adjustment and programming of individual lighting modules. Individual lighting modules may be selected for adjustment by momentarily pointing the remote control at the lighting module to be adjusted. Subsequent adjustments may be done without aiming at the lamp, allowing the operators attention to be on the object being lit. The adjustments may include switching on/off, dimming, changing colour, and aiming the light of the light source (i.e. adjustment of the light distribution). If lighting modules are spaced tightly such that multiple modules are selected by the directional selection beam, the remote control comprises an added feature enabling a user to cycle through the selected lamps by pressing a select button repeatedly, until an indicator on the desired lamp module is lit.
However, it may be desirable to provide an improved way of selecting at least one controllable device, such as a light source, out of a plurality of controllable devices.